Dozens of legislators from seven of the 12 countries negotiating the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement took the unprecedented step today of calling for the full TPP text to be released publicly before it is signed. The open letter reads simply:

We, the undersigned legislators from countries involved in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, call on the Parties to the negotiation to publish the draft text of the Agreement before any final agreement is signed with sufficient time to enable effective legislative scrutiny and public debate

Jane Kelsey, a prominent New Zealand TPP critic and professor at the University of Auckland, said of the joint letter: “The trade ministers from the TPP parties have backed themselves into a corner with their extreme secrecy. That position is now untenable.”

Given recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s global digital surveillance apparatus, the European commission on digital affairs said on Wednesday that the United States can no longer be trusted to maintain its strong hold on internet governance and that this authority should be made less U.S.-centric and more open to international control and democratic transparency.

“Recent revelations of large-scale surveillance have called into question the stewardship of the U.S. when it comes to internet governance,” said the commission in a statement which also offered recommendations for reforms.

Keith Judd, the convict who ran for President, became somewhat of a celebrity after almost beating Obama in the 2012 West Virginia Democratic Primary. What wasn’t reported, however, was that after Obama won the presidential election, Judd filed a series of lawsuits detailing how Obama was illegally placed on the 2012 presidential ballot. One lawsuit, filed on May 9, 2013, is scheduled to be heard before a federal court in the next few months.

And rumor has it that the Obama regime is extremely worried.

However, Keith Judd—who has strangely been in prison since 1999 for a minor threat made against a local New Mexico college—may never make it out of prison alive.

The European Parliament has been thrown into disarray over an amendment urging it to ensure the safety of Edward Snowden. The ex-NSA contractor’s name was dropped from the draft, which now merely calls for the protection of whistleblowers in general.

The parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee convened Wednesday to start voting on over 500 amendments to a report recounting results of the first-ever inquiry into the NSA and GCHQ scandal. The 60-page document condemns the scale and the impact of mass surveillance exposed by Snowden, who now lives in Russia.

The Greens, a small faction in the European Parliament, along with a minority of liberals and leftist MPs, had submitted an amendment to ensure Snowden’s safety should he emerge from hiding. The whistleblower has been considered a witness in the inquiry.

Today, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) along with 17 other members of Congress, sent a bipartisan letter to President Obama asking him to direct Attorney General Eric Holder to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, as is permitted by 21 U.S.C. § 811.

“You said that you don’t believe marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol: a fully legalized substance, and believe it to be less dangerous ‘in terms of its impact on the individual consumer,’” the letter reads. “This is true. Marijuana, however, remains listed in the federal Controlled Substances Act at Schedule I, the strictest classification, along with heroin and LSD. This is a higher listing than cocaine and methamphetamine, Schedule II substances that you gave as examples of harder drugs. This makes no sense.”